


to leave them behind you

by okayantigone



Series: cry havoc [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Child Neglect, Crait (Star Wars), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, Starkiller Base, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, Trauma, all the skywalkers can glimpse the future, anakin skywalker's a+ parenting, ben is scared of luke, everything is bad, self-fulfilling prophecies, the Jedi suck, the organa-solo-skywalkers' a+ parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: when he had failed to get better… luke had simply decided to kill him. and now he was here to finish the job, and kylo did not trust a word he said.kylo faces his uncle, alone and terrified for his life, and desperate to prove he's more than an accumulation of his failures.luke kills kylo on crait. he doesn't mean to. he hadn't meant to back then, either.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: cry havoc [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638544
Comments: 11
Kudos: 51





	to leave them behind you

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is inspired by that scene in tros where rey passes ben the saber through their force bond. i just wanted to play with that. i also wanted to play with the idea that all the skywalkers can tell the future, but they only have glimpses of it. anakin saw padme dying in childbirth - he didn't realize he'd be the actual cause of her death.  
> leia knows a man named kylo ren will kill someone important. luke knows that han solo is going to die, and he knows that ben will do something terrible. ben knows that if he becomes luke's padawan, he will die.  
> in a way, all three of them are correct.

> "don't you know that i'll be around to guide you?
> 
> through your weakest moments, to leave them behind you?"
> 
> -jose gonzales, _crosses_

as he descends to the unmarred white expanse of crait’s surface, he repeats in his mind the mantra that he’d had beaten into him. fear is the path to the darkside. fear is the path to the darkside.

over and over again. he could be afraid of luke, terrified, even. it only made him stronger. and he had to fear luke. he had to claw up for every single advantage he could in this fight, because he had no doubt it would be a fight for his life. but it had to end. it had to end here, and now, because he was tired. tired. that’s all he’d felt when he cut snoke down. he didn’t even have the strength to be angry. he was merely fulfilling his journey, his blody graduation from apprentice to master. he would have to christen himself with a new sith name.

if he lives.

he’d dreamed of it often, that night. in his dreams, he didn’t wake up on time, and that cursed green saber struck true. and luke had come to finish what he started. a lot of unfinished business in their family, that.

it’s just luke, he mouths to himself over and over. it’s just luke. and fear is the path to the darkside. he’d killed snoke, and snoke was more powerful than luke could ever be. but he’d had snoke’s trust. he’d surprised snoke. luke had always known him – had seen into the shameful darkness inside him, the worst part of him. luke had never trusted him. had never particularly liked him. so there’d be no surprise to count on. he knows he could drop his shoulders, extend his arms, lower his face. be wide eyed and contrite. pitch his voice a little higher, and play to his youth. he could throw himself at his uncle’s knees and beg.

it would make for a good distraction. and then he could run luke through. but luke is just as likely to behead him where he stands, as he is to do anything, and kylo is too smart now, to trust the deception of the skywalker family. they were all liars and deceivers. he had been a child then. he hadn’t known any better. but now he is an adult, and he does.

so instead, he will face luke head on, with his heart lodged firmly in his throat. fear is all he has. the darkside thrums all around him. she is his home. he is safe within the dark side. he is safe, and alone, now that snoke is gone. now that rey refused him. he had even let himself be surprised, but why should he be, when his own mother couldn’t find it in her to want him? he was ugly and damaged, and rey had seen it too, and she’d pitied him, of course she had. but it hadn’t been enough.

most nights he’d lay awake in bed, with hux slumbering listless beside him, and stare at the ceiling. he’d meditate, instead of sleep.

_be with me. be with me. be with me._

but no one ever answered. snoke had communed with darth revan, once. his spirit had imparted wisdoms on him. that was before kylo’s time.

not even the dead wanted him. sometimes he could feel his grandfather at the edges of his awareness, watching. he begged for guidance then, tear stained, and unashamed of his weakness, beating his hands into the floor, so the pain would anchor him more firmly to the dark _please, please, please._

_you have to make your own mistakes. like i did._

so i’m making a mistake? answer me! tell me what to do!

but from then on the darkness was silent. he’d split himself open begging. maybe his mother really was her father’s daughter. he’d called to her too, and she turned her back on him and walked away.

that’s the other thing he dreams of, when he isn’t dreaming of luke. he dreams of that sun-dappled day, the colors of the memory faded and bleached out. he’d been a teenager then, taller than both his parents, awkward and unaccustomed to the new bulk of his body.

they said they were leaving him with luke for a while, and he knew they were lying. he begged them not to make him leave. he’d promised to be better. his face was still obscured by bacta patches after he’d woken up tearing at his own skin _again._

“i'm being torn apart,” he’d whispered. “and i’m not strong enough.”

his mother did not say anything, but in the thin line of her pursed lips he read all the disappointment in the world, and wondered if he should have gagged himself, and drank the bitter teas. he couldn’t wake up from his terrors, but at least he was still, and not bothering everyone with the sound of his screaming.

han had been there too, which was rare. and so was chewie, and he obliged him for a game of dejarik to keep his mind off it all. he and chewie always got along, because they were both sore losers with shitty tempers, but somehow only one of them was worthy of being han solo’s co-pilot. of his time. of his attention.

han had lead him out. his hand had been warm on ben’s shoulder. as a child, he’d loved han’s rough warm hands, and how they could fix anything in the world.

“there’s nothing you can break that can’t be fixed,” han used to promise after one of his episodes. “as long as you’re here. that’s what i care about.”

and ben had believed him.

when han walked him out of the falcon, and promised it would be for the better, ben had wanted to believe him with such a ruinous desperation, that it had clouded everything else.

han didn’t understand the force. all he knew was that his son was plagued by something well beyond him. and he wanted ben to get better. and ben was trying, and it wasn’t working. and he hadn’t wanted to send ben away. he’d tried to convince leia that they could work through it, the three of them, but she’d bristled and reminded him that it wasn’t the three of them, was it, when he was still of gallivanting with lando calrissan.

when he wasn’t screaming himself hoarse with nightmares, it was their screaming that kept him awake well into the small hours. there was a lot of it about. he’d often wondered if all his mother’s warmth hadn’t been zapped away in the shockwave of alderaan’s decimation, syphoned out of her in the energy gap created by the destruction.

“this isn’t forever, kid,” han had said, looked into his eyes, and ben had thought he might cry, and blinked furiously. “you’ll get better, and come right back home, so you can start at the pilot academy. we’ll introduce you to shara’s kid, you’ll see.”

and in that moment, the force had sent such a powerful sense of fear in him, a precognition he’d always wished he could turn back. his grandfather anakin had also been unnaturally gifted at divining the future. he’d gripped han’d wrist.

_you’ll surely die here, if you stay_

“promise me you’ll come back,” he’d whispered. “promise you won’t just leave me here and forget about me, you have to promise you’ll come back and take him home.”

he knew he’d sounded wild in that moment. insane. that’s what his mother would whisper sometimes, when she talked about him like they didn’t live in the same house. _he’s unhinged._

he’d felt unhinged. han promised. then he got back on his ship.

leia was done talking with luke. she walked back towards them slowly. they weren’t even staying the night. there was … someplace she had to be. something about the senate, maybe. he doesn’t remember anymore. wonders if she does. knows he’ll never be able to ask her, and not sound like the same temperamental sullen fifteen year old. maybe snoke is right, and he’s nothing more than a sullen child, angry at the whole goddamn galaxy.

when he’d watched hux blow up the entire goddamn senatorial system, all he’d felt in his heart of hearts was vengeance. his mother’s true firstborn, to which he’d forever play nothing but an ugly stepsibling, in its death-throes. he’d mow down his way through luke, and do the same to the resistance and be done with it all. be done with them all.

han had promised to come back for him.

his mother had walked towards him. she always looked serene and composed, like nothing in the world could move her. the force knew, his begging never had. he’d begged her not to make him leave.

she said it was for his own good. but he was strong with the force, and had little control, and he knew she was secretly glad to have peace in her home. to not have to worry about him anymore, because she worried, and it burdened her.

he’d looked into her face then, with that same fear that same whisper – that this was the last time he’d ever see his mother. that he’d die here if he stayed.

his grandfather, who had been strong with the force like no other, saw the future in dreams. his mother did too, sometimes, though she never spoke of it. he caught snatches sometimes, of those same whispered conversations. one day a man named kylo ren was going to kill … someone. someone important. she feared kylo ren, and hated him, but she didn’t know who he was, and there was no way to stop him. he hadn’t heard who kylo ren would kill. he hoped if he trained hard enough under luke, he’d be able to stop him, and then his mother would get more sleep. then maybe she’d have more patience for him.

he’d been such a pathetic child, forever desperate to please the adults. always doing what he’s told. even snoke had praised him for it. the most obedient student he’d had. kylo simply didn’t know better.

he wondered if his own premonition meant that perhaps kylo ren was coming for him. he wanted desperately to convince himself it was fear for him not of him that had made her send him away. the truth was, they hadn’t spoken in years. not truly, anyway. she no longer knew him, and he no longer felt like being known by her.

“ben,” she’d said gently, and cupped the side of his face, where the skin was still pink and raw. it was a miracle of bacta that the scratches hadn’t scarred. “please … please try to get better.”

in the endless depth of her eyes all he could see was the flash of an iridescent green saber, and his chest suddenly felt like it was being split in two, with a panic that brought him down to his knees. he hyperventilated, and flailed his arms uselessly, reaching for something, anything.

snot and tears ran down his face.

“mother,” he said, when he managed to get control of his breathing. she’d stepped away from him. in his terror, sometimes, he used the force, and it was better then, to be at a distance, so he wouldn’t hurt her. he’d looked up at her, tear-striken and terrified. the force had revealed the future to him, terrifying in its span.

“he has killed me.”

she must have known then, what he’d seen. that it was real, that future. his death, not now, but years down the line.

“who ben?” luke asks. he speaks for the first time. his voice is like river water. ben wants to be this calm one day. “who has killed you?”

but the force had done her job in sending him the warning, and felt no need to elaborate.

“i don’t know,” he’d whispered, and broken down crying. kylo ren was coming for him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. “if you leave me here i’ll die. i saw it,” he told her.

“luke will keep you safe,” she’d said, and ran a hand through his hair. “he will. he won’t let anything happen to you.”

he’d watched her turn her back on him, and slowly ascend into the ships, her long white robes blinding in the sunlight. luke kept him steady. ben took a breath. so many children in the galaxy would kill for what he had. to be a jedi padawan under luke skywalker. so he forced himself to breathe. the jedi had no attachments. anakin skywalker’s desperation for his mother had started his fall to the dark. ben solo would not be seduced. luke would let nothing happen to him.

he stared at the horizon until the falcon became nothing but a dot, and then jumped to hyperspace.

he wondered if she’d known then, what would happen. he always would wonder. on the nights that he didn’t dream of luke’s saber swinging down woards him, he dreamed of the brilliant white hem of his mother’s dress as it disappeared into the falcon, and the hatch pulling shut behind her. those nights, he woke up shattered, sobbing uselessly into his pillow. the sunlight had been beautiful in her hair. she’d been wearing a glass pin to keep her braids up, and it was one he’d gotten her for a birthday at some point.

mere hours before, he’d watched her twist her buns up carefully, and studied her serene reflection in the mirror, as he begged her not to make him leave.

“ben… you aren’t getting any better.”

there’s no way she could have known… right? what had she and luke spoken about?

luke didn’t let anything happen to him. luke was the thing that happened.

fear is your path to the darkside, he recites in his mind, and then, absurdly, just for a moment thinks, _be with me._ just for good measure.

but no one had ever been with him, and they sure as hell weren’t going to start now.

fear is your path to the darkside. the force was everywhere around him, and he reached into it blindly. _please,_ he thought. _please._

he wasn’t sure what he was begging for. _be with me._

when his feet his the ground, and disturb the salt, he walks towards luke leaving a trail of blood in his steps. he remembers the way his blood had looked dripping on the snow of starkiller, as he’d stalked rey and the traitor through the trees. he’d slammed his fist into the wound, and forced himself to remember it was his last gift from chewie. he always was a sore loser.

anger, and pain had been his path then. but he’s not in pain now, so fear will have to do. maybe that’s why he’d always been so strong in the dark side. according to ben solo’s medical files he had an acute crippling anxiety disorder. well. like all exceptionally well-behaved children, he’d taken what he could get. and that included the force. if the dark side was what was afforded to him, then he’d use it, and use it well. god forbid he never live up to the promise of his potential. he flicked his saber and it flared to life crimson and furious.

broken. like him.

he’d liked the look of the crystal immediately, when he’d seen it.

“it’s unstable,” snoke had said, laying a hand over his shoulder.

kylo had shrugged. “i can control it.”

“and if you can’t?” snoke had challenged.  
  
“then it will be a lesson, won’t it?”

snoke had smirked approvingly. everything was a lesson. and kylo ren was a very good student. he just hadn’t had much luck with teachers, until then. he stared at luke when his own saber came to light.

it was blessedly, mercifully blue. he isn’t quite certain what he’d have done, if he had to look at luke’s face shadowed in green again.

“i failed you, ben,” luke says, and it’s true. he did fail ben, and ben had died. “i’m sorry.”

and kylo knows that he can’t trust it. he can’t ever trust anything luke says, anything leia says, anything han says. when he’d begged them to listen to him, they’d turned away. _be with me._ he pleads. he’s not sure who might turn up to his aid. no one had ever thought he was worth saving.

when he had failed to get better… luke had simply decided to kill him. and now he was here to finish the job, and kylo did not trust a word he said.

“i’ll just bet you are,” he snarls and his voice carries. luke is a liar, and so is leia, because they are of vader’s blood after all. but so is he. so is he, and if his grandfather has abandoned him, if he is standing on his own… then so be it. no one had come back for him. so he felt no compulsion to return to them.

he rotates his shoulder, and his saber slashes through the air. he’d always been quite proud of it. it was an unusual design to be sure. he’d toyed with different ideas. snoke had praised him. it was still a rare feeling, back then. of course he’d been seduced.

fear is your path to the darkside.

his heart is in his throat, and he can’t breathe. he’d never been on the receiving end of a force choke. he’d asked hux about it, once, when they were laying in bed. hux’s throat was purple with bruises shaped after kylo’s fingers, and smoking a cigarette. he’d licked his wrist and stubbed the cigarette out on the wet patch of skin with a hiss, then rolled his crystal blue eyes to meet his.

“like a panic attack, rather,” he’d said after a moment of silence. and then, because he never admitted weakness, not even when he was throwing his guts up in kylo’s fresher after yet another nightmare about his father’s belt, he’d twisted his vulgar mouth into a smile, and said “hot.”

he’d often been told his fighting style was unrefined. brutal. he was not built for the grace and agility of the form luke preferred to teach.

“but it’s dreadfully efficient,” snoke had said, watching him take down an opponent in the arena and raise. again, and again, and again.

efficient. god, he hopes its enough, but when had he ever been enough, when standing in the shadow of general organa and the last jedi master? when had he ever not come short.

he’d always known it would come to it one day. if he ever faced off against luke, it would have to be for his life. because the jedi were ruthless and unforgiving and did not believe in second chances, much like the sith did not. and ben had not gotten better. if anything, he had gotten worse.

luke hates him. he knows that now. knows luke has hated him always. it’s a secret the force shares with him, like she does the secret of his future. no one is coming back for him. and luke hates him.

because the important person kylo ren kills is han solo. the missing piece of the puzzle. the little bit of prophecy his mother had missed. _be with me._

“no one is angry anymore, and you should come home.” that’s what han used to say in kylo’s dreams, back when he was still ben, just an ugly, weird and unlovable child, on a foreign planet, falling always just a little too short of his jedi training. the oldest kriffing padawan in existence.

han would land the falcon, and come take him home. gods. he’d have done _anything_ to go back home. in those first few savage months under snoke’s tutelage, when the blood was still under his fingernails, and the ends of his hair still singed, he’d prayed they’d come for him. han solo, galactic hero, would swoop in with the millenium falcon for a daring rescue. take him home, and make everything okay again.

would say there’s nothing he’d broken that couldn’t be fixed. would take his blaster out and shoot first. his mother, the fiercest politician in the galaxy, a general who had armies tremble before her would take him back into her arms. she’d say “ben, i’m so sorry.” she’d say “come home.”

and he would. he’d meditated for days, with no sleep, reaching out for them into the forse. _be with me._ in the end, it had been just him and snoke. and snoke had been with him. from the very beginning.

when han stood in front of him, that day on the bridge, the horrible premonition came together. kylo ren will kill someone important. luke hates the man who’s going to kill han solo in his dreams. and luke tried to kill ben, so ben took the name kylo ren.

he’d stared at his father, who’d finally come to save him, ten years too late, and a few million credits short. _do it, han solo,_ ben had thought. _shoot first._

han had said those coveted magic words. han wanted him to come home. han promised it would be okay with every fiber of his being.

and han was a liar. he’d promised to come back and hadn’t. he’d promised to make it better, but nothing had ever gotten better. and when luke had stood over him, with the saber in his mechanical hand, and the green glow in his eyes, and the dark side sang around them, all ben had felt was resigned. no one had come for him.

han had forgiven him. he’d felt it. there was nothing but forgiveness in him. he’d drank it all in. that’s all he’d ever wanted, really. to be forgiven for the mistake that was his entire existence. the wrongness of his wiring. and han forgave. poured it all out, like he suddenly knew how the force worked. and kylo ren drank it all down, and finally, truly, laid ben solo to rest. he belonged with his father.

when he looks into luke’s serene face now, luke looks as he always has, centered and grounded, and kylo fears him. fear is his path to the darkside. that’s what luke used to say. the mantra he’d have him repeat during his panic attacks, and night terrors. the other padawans shared quarters. ben was too dangerous and unpredictable for that.

the first night he’d let hux stay the night in his quarters, he’d sent him flying into a wall and fractured three of his ribs. hux left him dry for a week after that. but that’s simply who he was. monstrous, and unhinged and uncontrollable. and so fucking afraid now.

he’d known in the moment that he stepped on the bridge, that if he took han’s outstretched arm, he’d be walking to his death. luke would finish what he started, or his mother, who loved her principles so much more dearly than she did her son, would sing his death warrant. and han would love him, maybe. but it wouldn’t be enough, just like ben hadn’t been enough for them.

let’s get this over with, he thinks. _be with me._ he begs.

“strike me down in anger, and i’ll rise more powerful than you could imagine,” luke says, and ben hates him, in that moment, not for any particularly deep-curring searing reason, of which he has a number, but simply for how fucking _smug_ and pretentious he is. no wonder no one likes the jedi.

“you think i’m angry?” he asks, incredulous, and shifts his stance, so he has wider range of movement. “i’m not angry with you,” he snarls.

yet again, he wonders how is it possible that his family – all people of reasonable intelligence and perception abilities, two of them with a reasonably strong connection to the force, and presumably, some mind-reading ability, could have continuously misread him so badly. wonders if they knew him to begin with. he’d sure looked cute in leia’s election posters though. after the images went through four rounds of edits to tone down his resemblance to vader.

“let me impart on you,” he says quietly, “a little truth. like you used to.”

luke swings his sword. “enlighten me.”

kylo wants to kill him. ben solo rolls in his grave.

“i’m not angry,” he repeats. “i’m terrified.”

he reaches into the darkside, and the force thrums through him, warm and heavy like a cloak. the light side was painful, searing. drawing on her left him wring out and exhausted, but the dark – the dark was like a hug. she just fit.

“and,” he takes a step forward, and slices and arch with his saber, and luke steps back his eyes widening just a fraction. “i have grown strong. in fear of _you.”_

fear is your path to the dark side.

when he’d been young and in need of guidance, shaking with the terrors, sweating and broken down on his hands and knees, there had been no comfort, but this. luke, standing over him, urging him to overcome it. it was ironic that now, this most hated sentence had eventually become his mantra. he thinks _be with me._

he lunges forward. he’s got luke on the defensive, finally. and he is so tired. he’s been tired for so long. he’s ready for this to be over. he’s ready to go home. he’s been ready to go home.

luke shifts just as he moves. it’s a risky strike, because it leaves him exposed. but generally, people don’t have the chance to do much when they’re being skewered by his saber. but luke shifts. imperceptible. his body moves on instinct before his mind can stop it, because even a jedi, committed to mercy as he is, wants to live. kylo had known he was fighting for his life. it just hadn’t occurred to him that luke was too.

luke screams _no, ben!_ at the same time as anakin skywalker screams _no, luke!_

oh, thinks kylo. he finally showed up. _but you’re not with me,_ he thinks at anakin. no. his grandfather did not come for him. he came for his son.

finally, he looks at what he’s done, from anakin’s striken face, to luke’s. his saber has ran luke clean through. he pulls his saber back. blood drips on the white salt.

there’s no resistance. because luke isn’t there.

“ben,” luke whispers. “i’m so sorry.” he walks forward. 

ben looks at his side. snce chewie shot him, there had been pain there, occasionally. or a numbness, depending on the day.

“oh.” ben says softly. the blue of anakin’s saber pulsates in almost the same shade as anakin’s force ghost.

his own saber clatters uselessly to the ground. breathing’s a funny thing. it’s not easy. his lungs will fill up and he’ll drown in his own blood.

the premonition comes together at last. they’d all only had bits and pieces of it.

“you should return to your body,” ben says, and licks the blood off his lips. “before the effort of doing this kills you.”

he’s so tired. gods. he’s always been so, so tired. the force, in the last moment, had allowed luke to pull his saber through the space. to summon it, as it were. kylo had known he would fight for his life.

_be with me,_ he prays. luke fades into an echo of nothingness. it’s not him ben wants. he was never a comfort. _be with me._ but his grandfather does not move towards him, standing as though he’s rooted on the spot.

ben finally looks up from where he’d looked transfixed at the glow of the ancestral saber he’d dreamed of wielding his whole life. his blood on the salt makes for a pretty contrast. he thinks again of starkiller. he’d have simply aimed it at whatever galactic corner luke was hiding, and seen that his nightmare was done. and in the end, luke had –

he raises his striken face up to look at his grandfather. to look _through_ him.

he pulls the dark side closer around himself, because he is cold, and he needs her.

his eyes are wide, and full of stars and fear, and in that moment he is the child that begged her not to leave every night, whenever she had to go to the inevitable meeting, or emergency council or – or whatever it was.

he’s on his knees in the salt outside, and he is dying, and he is alone. she hears the echo of his prayer. _be with me._

“mother,” he whispers. finally, he knows that that terror meant, the day he came to luke. “he has killed me.”

the dark side opens to him. the force sings. it’s a funeral hymn.

years of brutal panic attacks. fear, marking his path to the darkside. just the force hurling at him flash forwards of his imminent death, choking on his own poisonous blood. that’s all it had ever been. he has anakin’s saber, at least. he can’t really imagine rey would want to use it, after.

leia screams. he does not wish to comfort her.

he closes his eyes, and he fades away into the force, quietly sliding from time.

_be with me._

his robes crumple into nothingness. a funeral shroud laid over the blood splatter and the saber that had caused it.

hux closes his eyes. takes a deep breath. the supreme leader is dead.

he’d warned him, hadn’t he? _careful ren_ , he’d said.

he opens his eyes. long live the supreme leader.

“burn it all,” he orders quietly. so they do.

_some days_ , ren had said to him once, when they were bed, after a round of very mean and satisfying fucking, _don’t you just want to tear everything apart?_

_some of us aren’t children desperately begging for attention, ren,_ he’d said, unkindly.

_you’re literally building another death star, because your father ignored you when you were a kid_ , ren says. has the gall to smile.

hux hadn’t really loved him. ren hadn’t loved him either.

_yeah,_ he’d said, taking a puff of his cigarette. _i do._

_let’s burn it all, then, everything they built._ ren had said easily, stretching back. _you know we can take whatever we want._


End file.
